Though Roe v. Wade established an improved precedent for women’s reproductive healthcare, it did not effectively improve the conditions faced by women seeking abortions due to increased stigma and unaddressed financial concerns.
Grace Herdelin
AP United States History
Mr. Reader
6 June 2016
Women have struggled for the right to proper reproductive healthcare for decades, particularly for access to birth control and abortion. However, birth control was not readily available to women up until the 20th century because it was illegal in the United States. When three activists Emma Goldman, Mary Dennett, and Margaret Sanger worked together in 1914 to discuss the injustices poor women faced when they became pregnant, the Birth …show more content…
Wade, one of the most fundamentally private and personal decisions women could make was being decided for them by doctors and lawyers who did not and often could not understand the positions they were in. Roe v. Wade was able to strike down anti-abortion laws violating the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment, granting equal protection under the law to all American citizens . Roe v. Wade did more for women than legalize abortion; it increased their right to privacy which had been previously established in Griswold v. Connecticut, it took the danger out of making a purely personal decision, and most importantly, it granted them the right to a personal autonomy that had been long denied .This personal autonomy, their newfound right to control their future and the future of their families, allowed women to take on new roles in society as the traditional expectations of motherhood stopped weighing them down and the newfound reproductive liberties benefitted every aspect of their lives. However, the benefits of Roe v. Wade only impacted the women who were able to afford abortions, as the trial did not address the difficulties many women faced affording the procedure. Roe v. Wade also brought abortion to the public eye, increasing the controversy surrounding it and subsequently the stigma surrounding the women seeking to obtain it. Though Roe v. Wade established an improved precedent for women’s reproductive healthcare, it did not effectively improve the …show more content…
Wade, much greater attention was brought to abortions in the United States resulting in much greater stigma surrounding the women seeking to obtain them and the procedure itself. Just months after Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, the Right to Life Organization was formed in protest of abortion and the decision itself. The National Right to Life Organization remains the largest and oldest pro-life organization in the United States. It uses political activism, the media, and education to further its agenda and to increase the support for the pro-life movement. One of the organizations first publications was a comic strip called “Who Killed Junior?” designed to show a fetus in utero being aborted in the four most common procedural techniques . However, the cartoon displays abortion in a way that is far from the truth. Simply by giving the fetus a name, junior, an emotional attachment is created between the reader and the cartoon o increase the negative response to the subsequent images. The fetus is shown completely developed, smiling, and showing emotions at only three months old. Though the image is clearly s caricature, this artistic technique was utilized in order to gain sympathy for the fetus and to make readers think that when a fetus is aborted it is like killing a cute little baby. The language in the cartoon is of great significance as well; the woman seeking to abort Junior is said to be “killing” him, or even “murdering” him . In using these words, the
Grace Herdelin
AP United States History
Mr. Reader
6 June 2016
Women have struggled for the right to proper reproductive healthcare for decades, particularly for access to birth control and abortion. However, birth control was not readily available to women up until the 20th century because it was illegal in the United States. When three activists Emma Goldman, Mary Dennett, and Margaret Sanger worked together in 1914 to discuss the injustices poor women faced when they became pregnant, the Birth …show more content…
Wade, one of the most fundamentally private and personal decisions women could make was being decided for them by doctors and lawyers who did not and often could not understand the positions they were in. Roe v. Wade was able to strike down anti-abortion laws violating the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment, granting equal protection under the law to all American citizens . Roe v. Wade did more for women than legalize abortion; it increased their right to privacy which had been previously established in Griswold v. Connecticut, it took the danger out of making a purely personal decision, and most importantly, it granted them the right to a personal autonomy that had been long denied .This personal autonomy, their newfound right to control their future and the future of their families, allowed women to take on new roles in society as the traditional expectations of motherhood stopped weighing them down and the newfound reproductive liberties benefitted every aspect of their lives. However, the benefits of Roe v. Wade only impacted the women who were able to afford abortions, as the trial did not address the difficulties many women faced affording the procedure. Roe v. Wade also brought abortion to the public eye, increasing the controversy surrounding it and subsequently the stigma surrounding the women seeking to obtain it. Though Roe v. Wade established an improved precedent for women’s reproductive healthcare, it did not effectively improve the …show more content…
Wade, much greater attention was brought to abortions in the United States resulting in much greater stigma surrounding the women seeking to obtain them and the procedure itself. Just months after Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, the Right to Life Organization was formed in protest of abortion and the decision itself. The National Right to Life Organization remains the largest and oldest pro-life organization in the United States. It uses political activism, the media, and education to further its agenda and to increase the support for the pro-life movement. One of the organizations first publications was a comic strip called “Who Killed Junior?” designed to show a fetus in utero being aborted in the four most common procedural techniques . However, the cartoon displays abortion in a way that is far from the truth. Simply by giving the fetus a name, junior, an emotional attachment is created between the reader and the cartoon o increase the negative response to the subsequent images. The fetus is shown completely developed, smiling, and showing emotions at only three months old. Though the image is clearly s caricature, this artistic technique was utilized in order to gain sympathy for the fetus and to make readers think that when a fetus is aborted it is like killing a cute little baby. The language in the cartoon is of great significance as well; the woman seeking to abort Junior is said to be “killing” him, or even “murdering” him . In using these words, the